I will not for a moment entertain sleazy conspiracy theories that Sean Lien somehow masterminded a failed assassination attempt against himself in order to win sympathy votes for his party on the eve of an upcoming election.

Because blaming the victims of political violence would be crazy talk.

Postscript: It will be nothing short of poetic justice for Sean Lien to be accused of plotting an assassination attempt against himself -- when his father forever disgraced himself by making that very same repulsive charge against a different victim of political violence a mere 6 years ago.

I however, will not stoop to Lien Chan's level. Nor the China Post's. Nor Bevin Chu's or the rest of the pan-Blue media's.

I do note in passing though, that the China Post reports President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan has instructed Premier Wu Den-yih to take charge of the case.

Last November, he was arrested by the police and then charged in March with "creating a disturbance". His lawyer, Li Fangping, said the evidence for the charge had been that Mr Zhao had given a media interview on a public pavement, held a dinner in a restaurant for a dozen parents of other victims, and that he had held up a small sign in protest outside a trial of milk company executives responsible for the poisoning.

I can certainly understand why he did it. Must be demoralizing to spend hours chasing a Chinese fishing boat which has rammed two coast guard vessels . . . only to see the Japanese government let the perp walk.

"He was aboard a patrol boat for many years, and I suppose he might have felt righteous indignation about the fact that his colleagues' clash with a Chinese ship at the risk of their lives was hidden from the eyes of the public," a JCG official said.

When two power-driven vessel are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her starboard side shall keep out of the way . . .

Let me remember now . . . port is left, starboard is right. Got it. Pretty commonsensical. If a ship is on your starboard (right) side, you're not supposed to steer LEFT because that might, y'know, cause your ship to RAM into the other one.

On second thought, this is Lien Chan of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party we're talkin' about. And the man has his priorities. When someone of his ilk has to choose between standing up for democracy advocates or bringing pandas to Taiwan, there's really no contest.

(All my panda-huggin', all my panda-kissin', you don't know what you've been a-missin'...)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Public support for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet has plunged 14.9 points since early October to 32.7 percent, reflecting growing frustration with the government . . . reflect[ing] public dissatisfaction with the government's handling of Japan's row with China and a political funds scandal dogging ruling party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa.

No wonder the current Japanese government wanted to keep these under wraps -- for they clearly show that Prime Minister Naoto Kan released guilty men under pressure from the Butchers of Beijing.

Best thing Japan can do now is release ALL the tapes in the interests of transparency. We've got all the money shots now, but for completeness sake the rest need to be made public.

And the worst thing? Attempt to cover it all up by maintaining the current fiction that the tapes are part of "an ongoing judicial investigation" and cannot be released. Because in case Prime Minister Kan hasn't noticed, the case ceased to be a judicial one the day the Chinese took Japanese hostages in order to get Captain Ramboat back.

UPDATE: Good story, bad headline -- Senkaku collisions video leak riles China. (Bad headline because the story itself makes it clear that China doesn't seem too "riled". And of course, the two ramming incidents were more than mere "collisions").

Nonetheless, it seems the Japanese government is blustering about prosecuting those whose only crime was revealing the totality of Kan's surrender on this issue. Idiots.

"Had the Kan government been born with a spine, they would have done [what Adlai Stevenson did at the U.N. during the Cuban missile crisis]. They could have shown the world what the Chinese did, just as the world saw what the Soviets were doing in 1962."

UPDATE: Using a (Chinese) U.N. official to give at least the ILLUSION of U.N. approval. Nice touch.

UPDATE #2: Although maybe too clever by half. There've been some questionable (sometimes VERY questionable) Nobel Peace Prize choices over the years. But with one fell stroke, the "World Harmony Foundation" has rendered its awards radioactive. Getting one of them puppies now is like bare-handedly grabbing a plutonium-239 trophy. The 21st Century equivalent of the Stalin Peace Prize.